


FIVE PLACES CARVER HAWKE'S BEEN AND ONE PLACE HE HATES

by spicyshimmy



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: F/M, M/M, Sibling Incest, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-28
Updated: 2011-08-28
Packaged: 2017-10-23 04:09:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicyshimmy/pseuds/spicyshimmy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carver's life, Garrett's experiences. Written for choowy. <i>Carver only knows what it’s like to kiss someone because his brother knows. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	FIVE PLACES CARVER HAWKE'S BEEN AND ONE PLACE HE HATES

**I. REDCLIFFE**

Carver only knows what it’s like to kiss someone because his brother knows.

Four years makes all the difference; fifteen is a lifetime away from eleven, at least where he’s standing.

‘I’ll tell you,’ Garrett promises, ‘but you _can’t_ tell Bethany.’

‘On pain of death, I _swear_ it,’ Carver says.

*

That night he closes his eyes and tries to imagine what it’s like. It has to be behind the local chantry, in the shadow of so many cozy houses, against cold stone and trailing vine. It has to be quick, and no one is allowed to catch you, and afterward you have to leave. Because that’s the way it was for his brother; that’s the way things should be.

 

 **II. OUTSIDE LOTHERING**

They spend one summer in a farm on the outskirts of Lothering, an entire season in the same place. Mother milks cows and Bethany helps in the kitchen, with Father and Garrett chopping wood all day.  
The lady of the house tells Carver he can guard the chickens but he’d much rather chop wood, and he tries it out back while he’s supposed to be at supper, stumbling under the weight of the axe, blade buried too deep to pull it out all the way.

His first night of guard duty, foxes get into the hen-house.

‘Apologize, Carver,’ Mother tells him, and to everyone else she says, ‘He’s at that _stubborn_ age,’ but Carver won’t do as she says, won’t accept her excuses for him. Father takes him aside to talk to him but he won’t listen; Garrett calls him stupid and Mother scolds them both. Bethany cries forever, refusing to sleep, refusing to eat; she says they’ll have to leave now and it’s all Carver’s fault and she likes it here, why can’t they just stay, and when Carver reminds her it’s the first time they’re leaving because of _him_ , he already knows it’s a mistake.

*

He apologizes to the birds when no one’s looking. They’re the only ones he feels sad for, crouching next to their raw, maimed little bodies, feathers stained with blood.

 

 **III. OUTSIDE AMARANTHINE**

They make it as far as the outskirts of Amaranthine the summer of Carver’s thirteenth year. When he isn’t running errands for coin, he wants to see the horses—so few of them anywhere, and these are Orlesian imports—but he catches Garrett in the stables with someone buried under hay instead, and he listens at the door for longer than he should, the grunts and gasps, the slapping, bare flanks of flesh, the final, piercing cry.

In _Garrett’s_ voice.

Later, one of the templars outside the chantry is missing his scarf and there’s hay in his hair, and Carver has no one to ask about it all, voice cracking whenever he looks his brother’s way.

 

 **IV. OSTAGAR**

At Ostagar Garrett makes bets every night with the other members of the company, about how far an ice bolt will travel or how long he can hold his breath under water, if he can bed one of the lieutenants faster than another man or how much ale he can hold. Everyone likes him, the way his eyes crinkle in the corners when he smiles, just like father’s did, or how he speaks to the younger recruits, an arm around their shoulders, with a gentleness he reserves only for people who _aren’t_ the members of his own blighted family.

‘This is war, brother,’ Carver says. ‘Can’t you take _anything_ seriously?’

‘I _am_ serious,’ Garrett replies, ‘but we can’t just walk around being terrified all the time, now can we?’

*

Carver thinks it will be better to know he’s got blood in the fight, someone born to watch his back. It should make it easier, not more terrifying, but when he looks for his brother beneath the hail of burning arrows, the tempest of bloody mabari and clashing blades and doesn’t see him, his heart stops every time.

 

 **V. LOTHERING**

Carver is the only one who doesn’t cry when Bethany dies. He feels Mother’s eyes on him, mad with despair, full of reprove; she must think he’s heartless, that she’s raised a son as much of a monster as an ogre.

But she doesn’t understand how deep his mourning goes, that the fires on the plains of Lothering have burned him all dry.

Bethany was her daughter, but she was Carver’s twin. Garrett looks his way, and understands—for the first time in his life—that no, Carver doesn’t want to talk about it.

 

 **VI. KIRKWALL**

During their first year in Kirkwall, Garrett flirts with Athenril endlessly. Carver’s embarrassed by it but he doesn’t hate it, only because he’s the last to know they’ve shared a bed more than once. _Of course._

But it’s always easier when it’s a woman—‘Your priorities are in the right place as always, big brother,’ he says, so Garrett will understand he knows—and Carver has no idea why.

*

Garrett makes friends all too easily; he takes Carver with him less and less, leaving him behind to fester with Gamlen in Lowtown.

‘Looks like you’ve been replaced, boy,’ Gamlen slurs, finding Carver alone by the fire for the third night in a row.

‘Do me a favor, uncle,’ Carver says. ‘Next time you get pissed at the Rose, why don’t you spend the night in a ditch instead of coming back here.’

*

The dwarf has too much to say about everyone, and none of it pleasant; Aveline has never liked him; the pirate always _tries_ to be distracting; the Dalish elf is too good for all this; the _Tevinter_ elf, a dangerous weapon. The Fereldan apostate is just like Father in all the ways Garrett isn’t—Carver hates him the most.

All of them have two things in common: their affection for Garrett, and their endless teasing.

Garrett never bothers with defending him; he leaves Carver to the mercy of his new friends, and their attempts to humor him are even worse than their jokes at his expense.

‘I was trying to be nice,’ the apostate says.

‘Stick to surly,’ Carver tells him. ‘It suits you.’

*

Garrett can’t go a minute without flirting; Carver sees him exchanging sly looks with Isabela over drinks, notices him glancing Fenris’s way a little too often, even overhears him explaining brothels to Merrill.

If he goes for the dwarf next, Carver thinks, he’s going to be sick.

*

Still, Carver always defends his brother—beyond reason, beyond doubt. When the Coterie corners them in an abandoned sewer he puts himself between Garrett and the poisoned daggers aimed at his gut, because somewhere between that night in Redcliffe and this afternoon in Kirkwall, Carver became the bigger one.

‘It was an accident,’ Carver insists as Garrett drags him to Anders’s clinic. ‘I didn’t mean to save you.’

‘Go _away_ ,’ Carver moans as Garrett sits with him all night.

‘Enjoying being a martyr?’ Carver asks as he dresses after, hiding the new scar along with all the rest.

‘Good luck with him,’ Anders says dryly. ‘He’s been a model patient.’

‘Don’t worry about me,’ Garrett says. ‘I’m used to it.’

Then, they share a look that gets Carver one better than any Coterie blade ever managed to, and he stumbles on the steps outside of the clinic, steadying himself on the banister instead of on Garrett’s outstretched arm.

*

‘Stay away from my brother,’ Carver says. It’s not the first time he’s said it. It’s not the first time he’s needed to be drunk to say it, either.

Anders looks up at him wearily; he doesn’t take him seriously for anything, just like the rest of them. ‘I think you’re mistaken about so many things, but it’s sweet to see you actually _care_ about _something_ after all.’

‘You think I’m joking,’ Carver says.

‘No,’ Anders tells him, ‘because you’re not a very funny person.’

Carver’s come this far, he thinks. He can’t stop now. All that’s left is the truth, which speaks for itself—but sometimes it needs someone to speak _about_ it, and since no one else knows, it’s up to Carver to open his big mouth.

‘We worked for a smuggler and my brother fucked her,’ he says. ‘He fucked her for months, just like he fucks everyone. He fucked a templar outside of Lothering, you know. Our lieutenant at Ostagar. He’ll fuck you too if you let him, but don’t think that _means_ anything. He’d just as soon fuck a whore, but he doesn’t like to pay for it, the cheap bastard.’

Anders’s face tightens. ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘I see. Thank you for that. How good it is to know.’

‘Stay away from my brother,’ Carver repeats. ‘Or you’ll be— You’ll be sorry.’

Anders turns back to his pile of papers, his inkwell and pen. ‘If you don’t leave this clinic, then you’ll be sorry too,’ he says.

*

Garrett asks him a few nights later if something happened between him and Anders, but Carver digs his fork into that night’s cold stew and lies through his teeth. _No_ and _Why are you asking?_ and _I’ve no idea what you’re talking about._ Garrett accepts it, compliments Mother on her cooking, and feeds what’s left in his bowl to the dog when she isn’t looking.

‘You could have been a little nicer about the healing,’ he adds.

After all this time, he still doesn’t understand anything.

‘He’s going to get caught by the templars, you know,’ Carver says. ‘He’s a bloody _idiot_ for keeping that free clinic open.’

‘Are you _sure_ nothing happened?’ Garrett asks.

‘On pain of death, I _swear_ it,’ Carver says, riddled with just enough nostalgia to make his brother laugh.

*

That night he closes his eyes and tries to imagine what it’s like.

Against the far wall of the clinic, hidden behind one of the pillars. Hands braced against the mold and stone, head bowed against a strong, broad shoulder. Kissing his brother’s pale neck.

 **END**


End file.
